


You Got Trouble, Right Here

by Zetared



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, The Music Man - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 06:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19267432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetared/pseuds/Zetared
Summary: A.J. Crowley is a con man (and a demon) seeking to sew chaos in a small town called River City, Iowa. His only obstacle is the local librarian and piano teacher (and angel), Ezra Fell. It’s a “The Music Man” AU, ya’ll. Buckle up.





	You Got Trouble, Right Here

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you write things that are ABSOLUTELY just for you. This is one of those.

His name is notorious. It’s printed on his briefcase in big, white letters. There’s nothing in the briefcase. That’s how Crowley likes to work--building somethings out of nothings, creating temptation and trouble with whatever is lying about. Old school demons, they rely too heavily on the artifice of it all. They like their sharp, painful tools and their spooky apparitions and the like. Crowley prefers to travel light. He uses his words, mostly, and a bit of panache where possible. So far, it’s served him well.

The trick is to let the humans do most of the leg work.

That’s the great thing about his newest scheme.

Confidence tricksters, Crowley has learned, also know a lot about making something from nothing. He admires them. And, now, he’s revolutionizing the field.

The train he’s on is full of salesmen. They sell snake oil (a phrase which never fails to make Crowley, former Serpent of Eden, flick his tongue against the back of his teeth in glee). They sell promises. They do not deliver. The funny thing is, they think themselves (mostly) honest. They revile his well-known name because he’s decided _dis_ honest and not remotely subtle about it. 

A man behind Crowley complains, loudly, about his latest exploits. He’d been tarred and feathered and chased out of his last city. The townsfolk had seen him coming. Crowley had, after all, just been there himself and had left all those good, God-fearing people in the lurch. Bad luck on the man’s part. Not Crowley’s fault at all.

The atmosphere in the train is heating up. Now that Crowley’s name has been mentioned, it seems that every one of the snake oil salesmen has a story to share, some way in which Crowley’s exploits have sullied their own “honest” business. 

His name is on his briefcase. In big, white letters.

Human beings are not especially dangerous to him, in a mob or otherwise. Still, he doesn’t care to tempt fate. 

“This is my stop, boys!” he announces, with a grin.

The other men on the train stare at him. “Here?” one of the older gents says, baffled. “Not here, surely. Son, this is River City, Iowa! The folks here are so hard nosed you could break diamonds up their nostrils. _Nobody_ sells here.”

Crowley’s grin grows unnaturally large, teeth all bared. “Well, that’s perfect, then, isn’t? Exactly my style.”

“Oh, yeah?” one of the younger, more oily men says. “And whose style is that, exactly?”

And then Crowley lifts his briefcase up, displaying his name. He can just hear the hiss of angry dissent start up as he hops off the train.

He _loves_ Americans. They’re always so easy to tempt into wrath, at the very least. And a town full of bitter, unapproachable Iowans? Just what Crowley needs to earn his next commendation. With luck, he’ll hardly need to do anything at all to stir up trouble. With a capital T.

\--

His current line of business is in the musical arts.

Crowley doesn’t know anything about music. He can’t carry a tune in a bucket. The last instrument he’d so much as squinted at was a harp, and that had been a long, long time ago--one might say before time began, in fact. 

But he knows that people will pay big money for morality. And music, sold correctly, is as pure and moral as the day is long. 

There is nothing so patriotic and downright Godly as a big, brass band.

At least, that’s what Crowley’ll tell folks. And, without fail, they’ll believe it. (It’s the uniforms, he maintains, and the instruments themselves. They shine, you see. They look important. And, thanks to his own infernal miracling, the manufacturing cost is free). Where the real con comes in, though, is the lessons. He charges a pittance for the tempting uniforms with the stripes up the side. He charges next to nothing for the shiny trumpets and shimmering flutes. But he nickels and dimes to great extreme for his time. His “expertise.”

You see, A.J. Crowley has a revolutionary new way of teaching music that requires hardly any work at all. It’s called The Think System. A human thinks of the music, believes in themselves as hard as they can, and the music is made.

At least, that’s the theory as he sells it. He’s never stuck around town long enough to find out if its true.

So far, he’s made a killing in lesson fees. But it’s not the money that matters. Demons, by and large, aren’t very interested in mortal currencies. No, the true benefit comes from the humans themselves. The greed over the uniforms, the pride over the instruments. The deep, all-consuming wrath they feel towards him and towards each other over the whole darn business once they find him out. 

He’s been running this con for a few weeks, now, making a steady swath through the American midwest. Eventually, his infamy will damn him and put a stop to the racket. But he’s got at least one last go in him, he thinks. And River City, Iowa seems the perfect place to end the illustrious career of one shift, slimy salesman. (And then afterward, when all the commendations have come in from Hell, maybe Crowley himself will take a trip back home to London and spend the next few decades taking a nice, long nap).

\--

Previous experience has taught him that the best way to enact a solid con is to determine one’s weak points and quickly head them off. Weak points for this particular ruse largely come in the form of existing music teachers. They’re jealous of the attention he gleans, most typically. And jealousy has a terrible way of making even the most sanguine of humans suspicious and more than a bit of a pain in Crowley’s arse.

So far, he’s smoothed his road via simple seduction and flattery. “Why, Mr. Symphony Director, I would never dare to presume my small, homegrown marching band could ever ascend to such heights as your illustrious players!” “Why, Madame Church Chorale Mistress, I of course would only ever encourage my marching band to play the most reverent and aged of hymns! Glory to God!” etc. etc. He’s a natural at tempting humans. He’s been doing it since the start, after all.

So, he feels quite confident when he--via pestering the locals, who do _not_ strike him as especially friendly--manages to ascertain that there is only one potential point of contention in town. There is a man here who provides private piano lessons. He also is the town’s only librarian. (He is also, some of the more venomous women of the town hiss, a _confirmed bachelor_ and he keeps _dirty books_ on his shelves).

Bachelor librarians are especially prone to his wiles. This will be simple, indeed. He’ll be back in London and napping before he knows it.

\--

“Oh, Hell,” Crowley snaps out as he steps into the library and watches the librarian turn away, a big stack of books in his hands. “Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale (Ezra Fell, here) blinks at him, obviously surprised. “Crowley?”

“That’s me,” Crowley agrees, unhappily. There goes his vacation, gone on the breeze. Arrangement or no, the angel is unlikely to let Crowley run amok in this town. If Aziraphale is here instead of London, that means he’s been assigned. And if he’s been assigned, that means he’s going to be very Serious about the whole damn thing.

“Whyever are you here?” Aziraphale asks, coming round the counter. He’s not even trying to whisper. Most of the townsfolk present give the angel a dirty look. 

“You’re going to chase off your patrons,” Crowley says, with a smirk. “Don’t tell me you’re not letting these fine folks take out the books, even now? It’s a _library_ , Angel.”

Aziraphale casts a glance around the open space, seeming almost surprised to find humans in his vicinity at all. “Oh, right. Come with me.”

The angel drags him to a small office with wood panelled walls and a single glass window, which Aziraphale blocks off by tugging down the blind. “What are you doing here?” he repeats.

Crowley throws himself down into a nearby chair and immediately leans back on its hind legs. Aziraphale makes a face at this behavior but doesn’t scold him outright. He gave up on quelching the habit in the demon over a century ago. “What am I ever doing anywhere? My job, of course.”

“But _I’m_ here,” Aziraphale points out.

“Yes. I wish you’d been more specific when you said you were going off on assignment a few months back. I would have stayed out of the way.”

Aziraphale flaps a hand at him. “I could have hardly expected you to pop up in Iowa. Or America at all, for that matter. Aren’t you meant to be doing something or other about that war that’s brewing?”

“Please. It’s all just air and talk. Probably. Who knows? Humans love their wars. You know who doesn’t care for them, particularly? Me. And that’s why I’m as far from that mess as I can get. Well, close enough, anyway.”

Aziraphale makes a small “hmph” noise of disapproval. 

“I don’t see _you_ over there soothing any feathers, either, Angel,” Crowley reminds, flatly.

Aziraphale sniffs. “I was told to come here, specifically. I’m only doing what I was ordered.”

“Why? What’s happening in River City that needs divine intervention? Looks like nothing more than a bunch of old gossips and grumpy, selfish yokels to me.”

“Oh, that’s hardly kind.”

Crowley grins at him. “But you didn’t say it wasn’t true.”

Aziraphale picks at his perfectly manicured nails, looking anywhere but at Crowley. “Well.”

“Why are you here?” Crowley presses. 

Aziraphale makes a small, exasperated sound. “If you really must know, they’ve an ice cream social every summer. And they do a pie-tasting.”

Crowley allows himself to blink, eyebrows raising high over his dark glasses. “And?”

“ _And_...they local berry pies are apparently quite excellent.”

Crowley chokes out a small, disbelieving laugh. “You came all this way for pie?”

“And to spread good tidings and harmony!” the angel replies, defensively.

Crowley drops his head in his hands, laughing in earnest, now. 

Aziraphale throws a pencil at him. “Stop it! You still haven’t told me why you’re here, specifically.”

“Certainly not for the pie,” Crowley says, with a snort. “Honestly, I’ve been all around the rural areas of the country. I’ve got a con job going. Stirs up trouble, leaves everybody in a state of embarrassment. You know the sort of thing.”

Aziraphale’s expression is immensely disapproving. “And you just happened to stop here?”

“Well, everyone was talking it up on the train. Iowa, it seems, is a tough nut to crack. I wanted a go at it.”

Aziraphale sighs. “ _Really_ , my dear.”

“You’re here for pie,” Crowley reminds him, archly. “At least I’m actually working.”

Aziraphale knows better than to allow himself to traipse down the rabbit hole that is talking about Crowley’s work. Spreading tiny seeds of irritation and anger throughout America is not exactly the sort of demonic chaos one typically expects from his sort, after all. But Aziraphale has come to understand, if slowly, that Crowley is not typical of his species anymore than Aziraphale could be said to be typical of his.

Crowley also knows the angel won’t press the matter, much. He smiles, then, as Aziraphale merely sighs heavily and raises his hands briefly in a gesture of pure defeat.

“Fine, then. I suppose we’ll have to work something out for our time here.”

“The Arrangement?”

“Of course.”

\--

It’s a loose and living document, their Arrangement. They’d made official ages ago in an attempt to make both of their immortal lives a tad easier. No more useless tempting and thwarting back and forth--all that did was cancel both of their efforts right out. And if their work was going to come to nothing _anyway_ , why not be purposeful about how they did (or didn’t do) their jobs? 

It’s rare, then, since the Arrangement that the two of them end up working the same region at the same time. It’s more typical that Crowley might go up to Edinburgh to both bless and curse the town in equal measures--following both his own, Hell-given orders and Aziraphale’s Heaven-provided ones in one go. Their divine and occult influences still get cancelled out, but this way only one of them has to suffer the experience that is Scotland. Aziraphale, meanwhile, might go over to France to stir up a bit of dissent and mayhem while also passing benedictions on random passerby. The world kept spinning, humans kept being humans, and neither Above nor Below were ever the wiser.

The only place both demon and angel tend to frequent together regularly is London, and that’s only because they both decided to make it their home almost as soon as the city was established.

Crowley misses London.

“You know, you could help me out. Stay for the social, get your pie, but in the meantime…?”

Aziraphale shoots him an unimpressed look, but he relents. “What are you working on?”

Crowley explains his current con in gleeful detail. 

Aziraphale makes a sour face, after. “Oh, Crowley. You know that sort of trouble isn’t my style. I couldn’t possibly do such a scheme any justice.”

That’s true enough. The angel does all right instigating tiffs and spreading low-level irritation--he can do _that_ just by _existing_ , in some areas--but he’s naff at any of Crowley’s more complex, intricate sin-spreading. 

Crowley sighs. “It was worth a shot. Ah, well. Suppose I ought to take some professional pride in the work, anyway. I can’t wait to get home, though. America’s exciting, but it can’t hold a patch on home.”

Aziraphale’s dour expression goes soft at the word ‘home.’ “We’ll be back before you know it. It’s only one summer. And you can have pie with me, before you go.”

Crowley smirks. “I’ll consider it. But I think it’s only fair you do something for me in return.”

Aziraphale tilts his head in a nod, listening.

“Help me pull off my caper.”

“ _Crowley_. I just told you--.”

Crowley lifts his hands. “Only by staying out of the way! That’s the whole reason I came over to this library--I had to make sure the ‘confirmed bachelor’ piano teacher in town wasn’t going to rat me out as a fraud.”

Aziraphale narrows his eyes. “Is that a typical tactic for this scheme?”

“When necessary.”

“And how do you _typically_ manage to dissuade those poor souls from ‘ratting you out’?”

Crowley grins at him. 

Aziraphale sighs the sigh of the very, very long-suffering. “My dear boy, you’re incorrigible.”

“I do my best.” A pause, in which the demon looks upon his angelic counterpart with wide eyes and downturned lips. “Please?”

Aziraphale waves a hand at him. “Very well. It’s hardly much to ask, that I simply _refrain_ from doing anything to stop you.”

Crowley jumps up from his seat. He doesn’t thank the angel, but the gratitude is implied. “I’ll see you around, though, won’t I? I mean. We’re both here, after all.”

Aziraphale smiles. “I’ll smuggle up something to drink. I’ve a residence on Mulberry street. Come and see me there tonight?”

Crowley nods and flashes the angel a toothy smile. “It’s a date.”

\--

It doesn’t take Crowley long to get a bead on River City and her people. Hell, the townsfolk practically break into song about it. Stiff, suspicious, stubborn. Folksy to the extreme. He can tell that his very being screams OUTSIDER to these people in big, flashing lights and they do _not_ like it at all.

The salesmen on the train weren’t kidding; this is going to be a difficult case. It’s hard to provide temptation when you can’t even get a word in edgewise, let alone find a willing ear.

Then, inspiration comes in the form of four burly moving men carrying a big, table-like object into the nearest public house.

Turns out, it’s a pool table, and it’s attracting quite a lot of earnest attention from River City’s male youth.

A lightbulb practically explodes over the top of the demon’s head.

\--

Crowley’s always found it shockingly simple to convince a certain variety of humanity of the evils of the world around them. Drink, dice games, _fancy pool tables_. Anything can be made sinful when revealed in a certain light. 

It’s easy as pie to amass the most vocal and hysterical of River City’s people to him. He simply stands on a high surface and shouts at them about tobacco stained fingertips and crude words (like “swell”) and scarlet women. He equates a lack of moderation around the billiards hall with the sin of sloth, of pride, of lust. It’s not about the billiards table at all--it’s about what it _represents_. Like a tree in a Garden. Tempting in the extreme.

Crowley watches with a gleam in his eye as mothers cling to their errant children, men cast each other seedy looks, and the whole of River City’s population as a whole goes tense and trembling in the face of their own potential to fall from God’s grace.

And then, like a knight on a white horse, he rides in and saves the day.

What pool table can dare compete with the gleam of a brass trumpet? What child would dare fritter away his long summer hours at the pub, knocking balls about, when he could be trilling the keys of a coronet (those have keys, right? Hell if Crowley knows)? He paints them a word picture of holy white uniforms with thick gold braids and the click-clack sound of a thrumming march coming down their streets, God bless the U.S.A.

“And that’s the opportunity that comes to you today, fair citizens of River City. For though you may have trouble--and I say that’s Trouble, with a capital-T--here, it can be remedied! The evils of sin and corruption that plague you can, indeed, by stopped in its tracks! For today I come to you, a simple man of music and say that A.J. Crowley’s Boy’s Band can and _will_ save your sons’ immortal souls from the grave and terrible temptation of that fiendish pool table!”

It’s _so easy_.

\--

Aziraphale pours him another hefty glass of sherry. Despite the prevalence of the temperance movement in the state of Iowa, alcohol is easily acquired--but fine wines are, sadly, not so common. Even so, the dry sherry hits the spot. (They could, of course, miracle it into something nicer, but Crowley is tired from a long day of work, and Aziraphale mutters something indistinct about receipts from On High as he pops the bottle’s top).

“I do feel rather badly for the proprietor of the pub. Can’t be cheap, can they, pool tables.”

Crowley waves a hand. “Won’t stop anybody, _really_. Suppose fewer of the kids’ll get their grubby hands on it for a time, but the adults will rationalize their way right to it. And by next summer, all the hubbub will be forgotten about the corruption of the boys. They’ll get their turn. Humanity’s never let the possibility of eternal damnation keep from something pleasant yet; they won’t start now.”

Aziraphale hums in grudging agreement, taking a sip of his own drink and then a larger swallow.

Crowley follows the motion with a raised brow. “Hard day?”

“Oh, it’s those...dratted women. The mayor’s wife and her pack. They’re--.” The angel pauses perhaps realizing that the words about to spew from his lips are hardly charitable. “Difficult.”

Crowley leans forward in his seat, intrigued. He thinks he knows the woman in question; she’d been one of those at the forefront of individuals hissing about the pool table long before Crowley had even came on the scene. Judgemental and vicious. Convinced of her own righteousness and advanced morality. A hard case for Crowley and Aziraphale’s side both. “Oh?”

Aziraphale makes a small sound of upset, taking another large swill of his sherry. “She and the others come in multiple times a day to harangue me about the contents of the library. They seem especially upset with Balzac and Chaucer and the like. Then the conversation--if one can call it that--seems to shift incessantly from the _books_ to _myself_.” 

Crowley frowns. There’s not much about Aziraphale (lilywhite, ostensibly middle class, entirely polite, if obviously English and therefore foreign) with which the people of River City could find fault. Then, a vague remembrance of a phrase he’d been told and had repeated, later on, as a joke. _Confirmed bachelor_. Ah.

“You aren’t upset about that, surely?” the demon asks, casually. “It’s not even true, for one thing. Can’t be, considering. Unless you’ve been making an effort, recently?”

Aziraphale shakes his head, looking more miserable than Crowley has seen him in a long while. 

Angels and demons are not, strictly speaking, corporeal beings. They inhabit organic bodies made of matter and whatnot, of course--the better to engage the human with, my dear--but they aren’t _human_ , in point of fact. Therefore, they don’t care much about strange, human concepts like gender or sexuality. Unless they choose to, that is. But Aziraphale, as far as the demon knows, isn’t too keen on that sort of thing. He barely even understands it, finding gender an especially nebulous and useless concept. (Crowley, conversely, very much enjoys gender. He’s very gendered. Any gender he pleases to be, he’ll be it in spades).

“They’re just very _cruel_ about it,” Aziraphale explains, weakly. People are cruel to Aziraphale all the time. His posh accent and outdated style and, yes, apparent tendency toward invesion all have that effect on a certain bullheaded, unpleasant variety of human being. Crowley’s never seen the angel react this way about it, before. (If anything, Aziraphale tends to get rather wicked, when provoked. Causing hate mongers to drop their loose change all over the place and that sort of thing).

“And?” Crowley prompts, curiously.

Aziraphale makes a face. “There are a few of them, you see. The young ones. They come here after school and keep in a small flock in the back corner of the library. I know they must hear what Mrs. Shinn and her friends say.”

Ahhh, there it is. Now, it all makes sense.

Crowley stands up and pours himself a refill. At the same time, he pats the distressed angel on the shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll manage, regardless. You can’t protect them all, Angel. It’s the way of the world and all that.”

Aziraphale’s distress goes decidedly sour. “Perhaps I don’t care for the way of the world.”

Crowley pats the angel one more time before returning to his seat. Statements like that would hint at something akin to blasphemy, to some, but the demon knows better. The world is what the humans make of it, these days, not God. And human beings have a truly startlingly high capacity for making other humans utterly miserable.

“What about adding some more books?Translation of Sappho? Oscar Wilde?” the demon suggests, though it pains him to fo it. (Crowley had taken it upon himself to sleep away most of the 19th century. During that time, Aziraphale and Wilde had apparently been rather...chummy. It rankles, even today). “Could be useful, considering.”

Aziraphale hums softly. “I’ll look into acquiring some of their works,” he says. “That’s a very good idea. Thank you.”

Crowley coughs awkwardly into his glass. “No problem.”

A long, comfortable silence spreads thick as molasses between them.

“So,” Aziraphale prompts, brightly, “What’s the next step in your scheme, exactly?”

“Aw, don’t call it a ‘scheme,’ Angel. The way you say it, it makes it sound untoward.”

“It _is_ untoward,” Aziraphale replies, fussily.

Crowley smiles. “Well, maybe a bit.”

\--

Each day, some new obstacle arises to put the kibosh on Crowley’s grand plan. And every day, he steps around it like the professional he is (although, he has to admit, sometimes he relies more on demonic power than true con-man style ingenuity; he is, if nothing else, rather lazy). As the head of the school board tries to chase down his teaching credentials again and again, Crowley wrangles him up with a few other nosy nellies from around the town and entices them (with natural charisma and a bit of a demonic miracle) to form their own four-part harmonies. From that point on, none of them give the demon any trouble; they’re too busy singing nonsense up and down the streets.

When Crowley shares this tidbit with Aziraphale that clear, summer evening, the angel laughs so hard he tumbles (admittedly rather drunkenly) off his seat. Crowley joins him on the floor and they laugh together, traipsing through some truly terrible duets themselves.

\--

It’s when the instruments arrive that Aziraphale--standing with Crowley out on the porch of Aziraphale’s small but tidy house--casts the demon a hard, sidelong look. “They’re happy,” the angel remarks, idly. “Not just happy. I’d day ‘blissful,’ in point of fact.”

Crowley shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other and back again. “So?”

“Nothing,” the angel replies, evenly, watching as a young, tawny haired boy races down the street with a trombone in hand, screaming his head off for joy. “Nothing at all.”

\--

The Think System is genius, but it makes for a _terrible_ racket. The boys sit through rehearsal after (expensive) rehearsal, blowing uselessly into mouthpieces, slobbering ineffectually all over reeds, gumming up keys with fingers pressed so hard as to turn fingertips an ugly red. 

Usually by now, Crowley would be miles away, money in hand and promises left behind him entirely unfulfilled. But the demon’s promised Aziraphale to share pie with him at the summer social and Crowley’d be damned (no pun intended) before breaking that particular oath.

So, he muddles through and so do the young boys of River City and, actually, for all that they sound _awful_ , it’s...sort of fun, in a bizarre way.

\--

Crowley spots the salesmen from a mile off. He recognizes the black aura of vengeance with the ease of any demon, first off. And, besides, the young man is just as oily now as he’d been on the trail barrelling through Iowa.

“I tell you, he’s a fraud!” the salesman announces--thankfully only to Aziraphale, who is standing by the snacks table and filling up his plate. The pies aren’t out, yet.

“Oh, really?” the angel says, obviously shaken and not sure what to do.

Crowley comes up behind Aziraphale and steals a few pieces of strawberry off his plate, popping it into his mouth with not a care in the world. “Oh, hello,” he says to Oily with a cool, uncaring smile. “How are you?”

The man glowers at him, full of wrath which Crowley might otherwise find commendable (for him, that is) but at the moment mostly finds irritating. He intends to have pie with Aziraphale at this shindig, as promised, and he won’t be able to do that if Oily here gets Crowley chased out of town on a rail.

Crowley moves, ready to put the demonic whammy on Oily and make him go away. Aziraphale shocks him, however, by beating him to it.

“Have you tried these ham and cheese sandwiches? They’re quite delicious,” the angel says, nudging one of the crusty sandwiches into Oily’s hands with a soft, beatific smile. 

The man blinks slowly, looking a bit confused, all the anger rushing out of him like water from a busted dam. “I--uhm.” He looks down at the sandwich in his hand and, cautiously, takes a bite. His confusion wipes away, replaced by obvious contentment. “S’good.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, beaming at the man. “There’s to be pie later, you know. Best in the state, I’ve been told.”

“Oh,” Oily replies, distantly. “I’ll come back for that, for sure.” And then he wanders, a bit unevenly, toward the punch bowl across the way.

Crowley stares at the angel behind his glasses. “What--?”

“Shut your mouth, dear. You’ll collect flies.”

Crowley does, swallowing heavily. “But why--?”

“You’ve promised me pie,” the angel reminds him. “And--well. I’ve seen the looks on those boys’ faces, Crowley. They love those instruments, even if they can’t play them worth a hoot. You did something good, here, despite yourself.”

Crowley balks at the statement. “But when I leave--.”

“About that. Did you know that one of my older piano students is really quite gifted? And she’s recently graduated from the local high school and is in need of a job to do. I suggested she consider conducting the boys’ band. And actually teaching them something useful, I mean.”

Crowley frowns. “But--.”

“Maybe, just this once, you can leave the town in a better, happier place than when you found it. Consider it the Arrangement in action, Crowley. Lord knows that I’ve been sewing my own seeds of discontent with the new ‘dirty books’ I’ve put up in the library. It’ll balance out, just as it always does.”

Crowley must relax his jaw in shock, again, because the next thing he knows, Aziraphale is popping another strawberry into it and watching him chew with a fond, familiar expression. 

“You’re terrifying,” the demon tells the angel, agog.

Aziraphale pats his arm consolingly. “I shall take that as a compliment. What about the boys, then? Are you going to let them play tonight, after all?”

Crowley shudders at the thought. “Probably ruin the good will you say I’m supposed to spread.”

Aziraphale looks over at the sea of paternal faces in the park’s bustling crowd. Everyone is in their Sunday best. They look peaceful and contented and borderline friendly. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Parental pride, you see. It works as a wonderful filter.”

So, Crowley collects up the members of River City Boys’ Band and drags them, with immense struggle, through Beethoven's Minuet in G. He’s shocked and rather spooked by the overwhelmingly positive response. 

“Parents love their children, Crowley,” Aziraphale says as they share a piece of boysenberry pie. “It covers a multitude of sins.”

Crowley shakes his head. Millennia around the humans, and there are still so many things he’ll never understand about them. The pie _is_ very good, though, at least.

“M’taking the train out first thing tomorrow. Then the boat across the water and back to London town. What about you?”

Aziraphale tilts his head thoughtfully. “Well. The new books are all processed and in order. And it would be the work of minutes to put the house up for sale and miracle a ticket.” He catches the demon’s eye.

“Could be a ticket for a party of two, I’ve got,” Crowley agrees, amiably. 

Aziraphale beams at him. “It will be nice, won’t it? To go home?”

Crowley nods, looking out over the picnicking folks of Rivery City, Iowa. Most of them are crowded around boys of various ages, all of them clinging proudly to hard-used instruments of some kind or another. “Yeah,” he agrees. “But it’s got its charms, I think. America, I mean.”

Aziraphale takes another large bite of pie and hums his muffled agreement around the flaky crust. 

Crowley smirks and wonders, fleetingly, how long it’ll take Beethoven's Minuet in G to stop playing in a constant loop inside his head.

\--

Fin


End file.
